Reflection Essay Rough Draft

Research Reflection

At the beginning of the fall semester, my goal going into English 121 was to become a better essay writer, now that the semester is coming to an end, I believe I have grown my writing skills and met my goal. Writing has always been a challenge for me, especially in high school. My biggest struggle was trying to stay organized while writing. I would often begin writing about once topic, and slowly stem into a completely different direction. English 121 has helped teach me to keep track while writing, and focus primarily on a few key elements of the topic. I also learned the importance of researching from credible sources. Many web sources look like they would have accurate information, but after looking at the website they end up being stolen information and articles from other websites, or the information ends up being completely wrong. English 121 taught me the importance of finding sources from the databases as well as sources from the web, or books, articles, etc. 

I choose to research the importance of eating organic food for my research essay. I came across a lot of very different opinions, which made it hard to find the facts. Many sources I found were simply just claims the author was making, with no evidence to back their claims up. After doing a lot of research I finally found some credible sources, with accurate information. The problem with choosing such a biased topic is many people want to give their opinion, without doing the research. Organic food is a very broad topic, therefore I chose to research primarily the difference between All-Natural and organic, and the effect of pesticides, growth hormones, antibiotics and food additives. I did not even mention the use of genetically modified organisms (GMO’s) because I did not want the essay to become too off topic. After taking English 121, it was easier to narrow down my topic, and only focus on one important aspect of my very broad topic.

       One element of writing a research essay that I will continue to use in my future is writing a prospectus. Writing a prospectus is a great way to decide weather or not a source should be used for the research essay. I think that without a prospectus it would be rather easy to waste time using sources that don't have enough useful and accurate information. Writing an annotated bibliography is also important because it really forces the writer to analyze the sources to verify they are even worth using. I will always complete a prospectus and an annotated bibliography in the future before writing a research essay. My research skills are better than they were at the beginning of the year, because now I understand how to use the databases and why they’re important. Having a variety of sources is also ok, however some of the sources should come from a database such as EBSCO because they’re often peer reviewed, and have very accurate information. 

My essay has a lot of interesting facts about organic food, which I think my instructor will enjoy reading. To many, eating organic food is important, however to others it might be considered a waste of money. The readers initial opinion on organic food will influence weather or not they enjoy and agree with my essay. I do believe my essay has enough information on organic food to hopefully interest readers who do not initially believe organic food is important. I enjoyed writing my essay on organic food, and I hope anybody who reads my essay will enjoy it too. In the future I will spend more time on my rough draft, so I don’t have such a large amount to edit in a small amount of time. I will also spend more time planning my essay so I don’t get off track, and accidentally go off topic. Overall I enjoyed writing my research essay, and I believe I have gained many useful skills which will help my writing in the future.